Where I went

Of all the stories I have heard about people having difficult immigration experiences (there's a whole lot of them too), the vast majority of them involve United States immigration officials. Vast majority. However, the most likely candidate for runner-up is Tanzania. That said, I wanted to make sure that every single i was dotted and t was crossed before writing anything. Yesterday I received my visa to do work with Global Cycle Solutions (my initial visa was as a tourist), so at long last, here is my update.

At the start of December, I took a trip to Tanzania. The border was only 60 km west of my house, but I had never bothered to go even 2 km in that direction. I was pretty worn down from an exhausting term, a seemingly futile job search (I had sent out 7 resumes, had 2 interviews and been rejected by 1 of them) and my struggles with Peace Corps administration. This respite was exactly what I needed. I started out my week-long trip with a 3.5 day safari to Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti with Jackie (lots of funny stories from that, which will hopefully show up as retroactive blog posts in the not too distant future). After that, we came back to Arusha to spend a few days in town.

The first thing that we did was to find our friend Jodie (Jackie, Jodie and I all took D-Lab together in Fall 2007) and meet for lunch. Jodie talked a lot about her experiences running a start-up, and it all sounded really rewarding (Jodie and I had also lived on the same hall for a year in college, and had several friends in common, so I knew about her initial efforts, but had since lost track of everything). I talked a bit about my job search, and as the conversation continued, Jodie suggested that there might be a place for me at Global Cycle Solutions. We ironed out the details and we both seemed a lot happier after that.

After I returned from the trip, I went to Nairobi for a medical check-up. A lot of people commented that I looked a lot more positive and happy (some even used the word healthy). Two separate staff members noted the change and asked me if things had improved with my school. I was not allowed to tell them anything (as discussed in my post “Leaving”), so all I could do was tell them they had not, although I had a big smile on my face as I said so. Since my family was coming (the third goal of Peace Corps is to teach Americans about life and culture of our host country, so I was still working within Peace Corps objectives) and I was on vacation time anyway, I wanted to hold on to my Kenyan visa a bit longer. (Blog posts about my family visiting should also be coming in the slightly more not too distant future.)

After putting my family on the plane, I ended my Peace Corps service and traveled to Tanzania. I spent nearly a month learning my way around Arusha, meeting people, getting settled, improving my Kiswahili, becoming a better cook, and all kinds of other random tasks. Now that my visa has been processed, I can work at Global Cycle Solutions. My responsibilities vary pretty widely and include tasks ranging from sales to accounting to grant-writing, and hopefully, eventually to some engineering tasks.

So lots of people put lists in their blogs, so I am trying to do this a bit more:

Reasons I think this company is pretty cool:
1. Pedal-power has very high potential to increase productivity in rural villages
2. Top notch product design (with a specific focus on affordability, portability and user-friendliness)
3. The company is for-profit, so we are not sitting around waiting for donations (especially difficult with the current world economy)
4. The company is using part of the profits to foster innovation and co-creation (i.e. encourage local inventors to bring their own designs to market)
5. Scalability is a top priority
6. The team in Tanzania is very tightly-knit and is a collaborative effort between Tanzanians and Americans
7. The company is dynamic so that it can stay relevant and continue to meet customers' changing needs
8. The team cultivates networks to facilitate growth and support
9. My work is challenging and rewarding
10. There is a lot of freedom and flexibility in policies to allow workers to get their work done